New York Times Corrections: “An article on Wednesday about the phrase “Collyers’ Mansion,” used to refer to a dangerously cluttered dwelling, misstated the authenticity of an artifact found in the Collyer brothers’ Harlem brownstone, the jam-packed building that spawned the term now often used by firefighters. Although some of the artifacts recovered, like musical instruments, were determined to be fakes, a two-headed baby in a jar of formaldehyde found in the house was actually real.”
Month / July 2006
Citizen McCaw: “People Will Think What I Tell Them to Think.”
LA Observed: “Things began coming to a head last month when McCaw ordered editor Jerry Roberts to quash coverage of opinion editor Travis Armstrong’s DUI arrest — then named Armstrong interim publisher and authorized him to start editing news stories…..Roberts, a former top editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, was led from the building by Armstong as reporters and editors protested and reportedly shouted ‘Fuck you, Travis.’ McCaw, already estranged from much of the Santa Barbara community over her handling of the paper, now has ravaged what was a high quality, experienced and collegial newsroom.” (via Ghost Word)
More on heiress Wendy McCaw here.
Whose Game Is It Anyway?
Back in 1993, when I had grand plans of forming an improvisational troupe in Sacramento that fizzled, I wrote down a list of all of the games in Whose Line Is It Anyway? that I used for auditioning potential actors. I lost the list many years ago, which is just as well, seeing how terrible my handwriting is. Thankfully, Wikipedia ha a list of nearly all of the games used on both the UK and the US incarnations of the program.
Also, if this is true, I had no idea that Tony Slattery went through a midlife crisis where he refused to answer the door and the telephone for six months.
Look, I’m No Expert in Political Diplomacy…
…but I’m pretty sure that inviting North Korea to fire a missile at California is more batshit insane a public statement than almost everything Bush has ever uttered. Am I awake after a mere four hours of sleep? Oh, you better believe it. What next? Sending Kim Jong Il a map of the West Coast’s most vulnerable targets?
Boos at Cannes, Boos at California
Jackson West wrote me at a crazed hour last night to alert me to his Marie Antoinette review, which he calls “worse than I could have possibly imagined.”